No marcescence here!

I've not seen what I would consider true marcescence here (TN) on either species. Right now I've got a couple BCs that still have some foliage in their tops, but none of my DRs are holding any foliage, nor are any others that I'm acquainted with. I'd almost call BC tardily deciduous, especially in the Gulf coast and peninsular FL.

I’ll get pics. My sapling Metasequoia is bare, but most of the big ones have some (Brown) foliage left.

This is by far the worst year for it. I don't have a pure Taxodium anymore - I stupidly lost the excellent and rare cultivar T. ascendens 'Prairie Sentinel' by trying to move it in late spring. (At least it was the last time I made that dunderheaded mistake!!! It taught me I really have to be more organized about how I manage incoming acquisitions.) But I recall that it, and Metasequoia 'Ogon', are maybe tardily deciduous - but NEVER truly marcescent. Even in this terrible year, I just looked at my now-huge 'Ogon' and pretty much all the needles are gone. Though ya know what...now that I think about it, we have had 2 unusual early December snowfalls to help push them off. As much as a nuisance as those were, maybe they were a good thing haha.

OTOH, BCXMC '406' and '502', not surprisingly, hold their needles even longer. Though if we have a normal fall-early winter cool down sequence - they pretty much want to lose them. Albeit later than 'Ogon'...it's a very slow process compared even to other deciduous conifers. They definitely normally still have some needles on January 1...but they aren't unattractive at any given time. They go from muted orange to a beige-russet and fall off by midwinter.

With the absolutely crazy fall this year* both are totally confused. There are even some almost fully green needles on a 406, but I think they are almost dead and just haven't decolorized. There's mostly a lot of very ugly brownish-gray needles...they clearly froze before they were ready to freeze! All I can say is I hope the weather patterns of this fall remain as unusual as they seem to be. If they looked this bad every year, you'd have to seriously consider not growing them, in spite of their novelty and fast growth. BTW the potted 406 in the garage has been a fine golden color for several weeks...that is what they normally do. I live in an area where fall freezes usually hold off until around Thanksgiving.

* -Camellia japonica 'Korean Fire' ALREADY in bloom! It's almost as though some plants thought the weird early cool spell, and then dry spell - I can't even remember which came first - was winter...and then spring arrived in November or something? Most early spring bulbs are already coming up. Never seen this nonsense before.

I don’t have the slightest hint of a bulb trying to come up (in 2015 I did at this point).

The odd thing is, it hasn’t really been warm. It’s been dry but generally average to cold, save for a few milder stretches. Nothing like the insane warmth of December 2015.

My metasequoia defoliate. Was there perhaps a good freeze which interrupted the process perhaps? We had a strange fall this year.

I have a bald cypress that for some reason losses it's leaves from the bottom up. A friend asked me if maybe one of the state's herbicide trucks came along and sprayed it, but nope, it does it every year.

Most of my BCs do the same, inside foliage first, then lower limbs, top of tree last. Some turn all at once. The trees aren't native where I live, they're from several sources. Interestingly, the native beeches do the same, only in reverse, top to bottom. The bottom foliage on many, but not all, becomes truly marcescent.

A couple examples. Most Metasequoia look like this around here right now.

Looked at my BCXMCs again. First of all, hadn't read about them for a while and now realize T406 and T502 are actually (BCXMC) X MC. And are mostly evergreen down in TX. That mine were mostly going deciduous might have been because they were still getting established. Funny thing is, with the warm up, their hideous appearance is slightly improving. I will be quite honest in saying I don't know if this means they are poorly adapted to this area. It could. If they go back to mostly being deciduous, I'm not worried. But I don't want them to waste energy continually trying to re-vivify in winter around here. A plant from Mexico might well be adapted to trying to do that.

You can see the 'truly deciduous' needles towards the inside of the tree. In the past, most years by Dec. 25, they would all look like that. You see some are still pretty green. Most are that ugly parched look, but it's almost like those are coming back to life a bit. I swear they were grayer looking a few days ago.

I believe the images posted by Hair and Indy are immature male pollen cones rather than foliage, but it's hard to tell without a closeup.

Isn’t it the wrong time of year for pollen cones?

Just drove by the trees (couldn’t get a pic). They do look like male pollen cones.

The cones are produced in late summer-early fall, held over the winter, and produce pollen in the spring. BC does the same thing, but they are much less prominent.

My pond & baldcypresses are showing alittle of it this yr, for the first time. Dawn redwood is bare, tho. And as somebody's pic a couple weeks ago showed, male pollen cones develop on baldcypresses in fall (if that tree is going to develop them) and are apparent thru the winter. They are like hanging strings of miniature cones.

I'm looking at hair's pics and those do not look like male cones -- just leftover leaves.

I guess I never paid enough attention to notice they were cones, and the smaller trees I have observed up close are totally bare, as they aren’t reproductively mature.

Hair, here's a good pic from the web of male BC cones:

Ken is spot on for the Indiana tree. Beautiful day here, and I got out of the car:

Yes, that’s exactly what I saw on the trees here in Maryland, too.

I guess I never realized the pollen cones were that prominent in winter before they open in spring. I guess I just assumed they emerged with the leaves in spring, instead of existing on an expanded “catkin” type structure all winter.

I have about 7-8 T. d. 'Peve Minaret' in a grove and after reading this thread went out and looked at them more closely. They have lost their foliage, but in some cases it has gotten itself caught in the crotches. A good wind will get rid of it. Love the photos of the cones.